POLL Neon Like -- ILM artist poll #88 -- BJÖRK (voting open until April 27, 2018)

I just did my ruthless first pass on tracks to isolate my favorite-est of favorites. It's 24 songs long, leaving me only 6 slots for the roughly 40 or so garden-variety favorites.

Reception seemed to veer towards "oh a Björk break-up album nbd"

from where i was sitting at the time it was a very big deal!

i was only really capable of listening to it once but i’m looking forward to hearing it again

Some of her b-sides like Scary, So Broken and Domestica are probably in my top 20. As usual her performances are tight but So Broken and Joga on Jools Holland are so so good. I wouldn’t like to be the band following those ones.

I lost interest after the brave, challenging, unlistenable Medulla, although the Von Trier soundtrack caused the first chink in my armor. I've given every album at least two spins, though. I look forward most to re-listening to Vulnicura

brave, challenging, unlistenable Medulla

medulla has so many hooks, what did you listen to

"Triumph of the Heart" I can still hum, don't remember a thing about the rest. It's been fourteen (!) years.

"who is it" one of her most indelible choruses

gonna listen while I work out this afternoon

I've been doing a good job today of convincing myself that Medulla is actually my favorite Bjork album

Drawing restraint 9 is where the rot set in

this is good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC4RTMsb8bA

Back to Biophilia and 'Mutual Core' is blowing my mind rn

brave, challenging, unlistenable Medulla

medulla has so many hooks, what did you listen to

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Friday, April 13, 2018 6:50 PM (one hour ago)

Seriously! 'Medulla' is her last pop record, with like melodies and beats and lyrics with meter that follows those beats. It's her last (successful) song record.

Did you hear the record or just read some bad reviews? ; )

HOW CAN I IGNORE
THIS IS SEX WITHOUT TOUCHING

I'm very curious about the songwriting/production arrangements on this album. Apparently "Army of Me" and "The Modern Things" were initially recorded before Debut, but they sound very much "of a piece" (if anything on this album can be described in those terms) with the other electronic tracks sonically, sort of sitting halfway between the Nellee co-productions and "Enjoy". The production credits suggest that maybe Bjork built the bones of those songs with Graham Massey and then retouched them with Nellee Hooper?

The funny thing is that songwriting-wise there's nothing like those two tracks on Debut, and the other Nellee co-productions on Post ("Hyper-Ballad", "Isobel", "Possibly Maybe"), which I think Bjork wrote by herself, all follow Debut's relatively more conventional song template (the album's "Violently Happy", "Aeroplane" and "Venus As A Boy" respectively, perhaps).

So it's almost as if what changed when Bjork collaborated was not so much the production sound as the songwriting approach, though in this case it's more the collaborator sparking something out of Bjork that was there, given there's no way you could conceive of (say) "The Modern Things" as the product of any other musician.

― Tim F, Monday, 21 November 2016 11:47 AM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was listening to Post last night and thinking this again.

And to be clear I would never attribute primary responsibility for the sound or style of her work to anyone else. But I guess since throughout the 90s it felt like Bjork was always riding the crest of an advancing wave of modern pop sound design, it's fascinating to me to consider the sound of that work in its broader context - like the way the buoyancy and swing of "Come To Me" feels like the culmination of a sound that started with the early Soul II Soul singles, or how "Play Dead" so precisely presaged (and, I suspect, directly inspired) the sound of Depeche Mode's Ultra some four years later.

ike the way the buoyancy and swing of "Come To Me" feels like the culmination of a sound that started with the early Soul II Soul singles

This explains some of the ambivalence up thread, and it might also have something to do with how old one was when Bjork released Debut. With Hooper I was conscious of the Massive Attack and Soul II Soul background, therefore those things sounded like a culmination; to others they're the blah-est tracks.

oh, i just realized that i associate "bachelorette" with this amv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrLq6daOp9Q

this same thing happened during the smashing pumpkins poll lol

also holy shit i still love this song

Triumph of a Heart is really grating to me for some reason, the melody just does not work for me at all.

i realize that i actually like the beatboxing on that track, except for one of the voices - the one that moves much faster than the others, at a high pitch. that particular mouth grates, for me. really like the rest of it.

watching the video, you see how personal of a process that might have been, to record the different components of that beat. and you can almost imagine them not having the heart to tell the guy who does the high pitched fast moving part to just be quiet. it was too awkward, so they just let him keep doing it i guess.

Today is the day I discovered the Motorbass Remix of “Isobel”.

Also

This explains some of the ambivalence up thread, and it might also have something to do with how old one was when Bjork released Debut. With Hooper I was conscious of the Massive Attack and Soul II Soul background, therefore those things sounded like a culmination; to others they're the blah-est tracks.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 13 April 2018 23:18 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this is correct. I got on board in 1995 and while Poat sounded more up-to-date than Debut, the difference didn’t seem substantial (it actually seems like a wider gulf now than it did then - sonic trends moved so fast in the 90s that it wasn’t obvious then just how remarkable the velocity was - now the idea that things could change so radically in just 2 years seems remarkable). Whereas if you jumped on board with Homogenic the production choices on Debut might seem very safe or classicist.

Also

This explains some of the ambivalence up thread, and it might also have something to do with how old one was when Bjork released Debut. With Hooper I was conscious of the Massive Attack and Soul II Soul background, therefore those things sounded like a culmination; to others they're the blah-est tracks.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 13 April 2018 23:18 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this is correct. I got on board in 1995 and while Poat sounded more up-to-date than Debut, the difference didn’t seem substantial (it actually seems like a wider gulf now than it did then - sonic trends moved so fast in the 90s that it wasn’t obvious then just how remarkable the velocity was - now the idea that things could change so radically in just 2 years seems remarkable). Whereas if you jumped on board with Homogenic the production choices on Debut might seem very safe or classicist.

Sorry for the double post

I was like 9 years old when I first heard a Bjork song. It was in the Now that’s what I call music #2 compilation and the song was “it’s oh so quiet”. My cousin and me thought it was the weirdest song ever.

Volta is very much her Varèse album, isn't it? The larger instrumental ensembles are back but I'd forgotten that it's nearly all brass and percussion. Saving the strings for Vulnicura, it turns out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnRhxOx_Cw4

holy shit

dope brad

i think you can make a case for "it's oh so quiet" being a gateway bjork track for the ardent and casual fan alike, i remember working at a&b sound and people would buy Post with like red hot chili peppers, not to judge that band but i'm saying it appealed to everyone

it was the first bjork I heard. I remember my teacher in junior school one day getting all excited "did you guys see buh-jork on top of the pops last night?!"

I definitely heard/saw Bjork via some of the Debut videos first, but "It's Oh So Quiet" was the first thing by her that I remember enjoying. I'm in the process of watching all of the official music videos available on her YouTube channel, and I can't imagine anything topping this for sheer exuberant joy (though "Big Time Sensuality" comes close).

Stonemilker is really incredible, I think it's going to make my top 10

30 tracks was impossible. I'll send 30. . . but personally, I didn't fall to anything I don't like more than 99.9% of contemporary/contemporaneous music until well after #50. And if I did it again at another time, anything between 20 and 40 would probably wind up in a different order.

Reinforced what I already thought, which is that 'Medulla' is basically right there with 'Post'. In terms of tracks, I actually ended up with 11 from 'Medulla' in my top 50. I wish others heard in it what I do--her last great stab at song/melody/beats before focusing mainly on texture/abstraction/instrumentation. But I am already prepared for the likelihood that at best one or two tracks will sneak into the bottom of the ILM top 30.

The thing I hadn't realized before this exercise is that while 'Vespertine' hasn't held up for me over the years like other albums, the b-sides from that era are maybe her best--I've got as many b-sides as album tracks from 'Vespertine'.

For post-Medulla work, sadly, 'Volta' remains as repellent to me as ever--while I dig some of the thought process and the instrumentation, I just find the whole thing disjointed, and while "song-based" totally unengaging as songs and as a song-sequence. 'Biophilia' remains the lovely little trifle I remember it as, not at all unappealing but basically minor. 'Vulnicura' is stronger as a whole than anything since 'Medulla' (and is the only later album to place multiple tracks in my top 30) but it's still most interesting as a sort of "older person looking back and arguing with her early art" than as a work unto itself, for me--while nevertheless being her first emotionally engaging work in a long time. I found a couple tracks from 'Utopia' that manage to actually stand apart enough to be noticed, but the sum total of the album remains fascinating wallpaper.

I didn't fall to anything I don't like more than 99.9% of contemporary/contemporaneous music until well after #50.

Same.

"older person looking back and arguing with her early art" ... while nevertheless being her first emotionally engaging work in a long time.

OTM. Especially glad to have revisited Vulnicura this week.

It's so incredibly early yet in balloting, but for the record, the current #2 track is an amazing surprise.

My guess is Who Is It but that’s such a perfect song

jesus christ the vespertine b-sides

"generous palmstroke" AND "verandi"

so I've warmed to Medulla.

I liked it at the time, and sold it during the great CD purge of 2015. Kind of regretting that now, or at least I very well might be once I give it a fresh listen.

"domestica" AND "amphibian," this is ridiculous

Brad! "Generous Palmstroke" is purest Nelsonlania.

Fans of Medulla might enjoy this one:

https://youtu.be/NDVMtnaB28E

Won the pulitzer prize. Some parts of it are really impressive.

^ Thanks for posting. Björk herself is a huge fan, she's mentioned Shaw in interviews and I think even put "Partita" on one of her DJ mixes.

That's really great Moka.

my ballot is shaping up to be so bjork normcore :-/

i am trawling her post-vespertine work, and several will definitely make my list...but probably near the bottom. it's really difficult to pierce the top-tier of debut-vespertine tracks, at least for me. i have a hard time putting anything above even my current 3rd or 4th favorite track off of homogenic or post.

post-vespertine work
er, by this i mean her work after vespertine

the top-tier of debut-vespertine tracks
and by that i meant tracks spanning from debut through vespertine

I hear you but.. there's nothing actually wrong with that route?

my ballot is v weird so far but i'm not sure i'm going to have room for anything after medulla myself